


Storms in Skies Unsettled Still

by Ramzes



Series: Night So Dark and Star So Pale [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 09:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13499092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: Still, he looked at Elia and had to admit that he did not like her when she was being like this. She no longer possessed many of the qualities that had made him fall in love with her.





	Storms in Skies Unsettled Still

**Author's Note:**

> Looks like I'm channeling GRRM here! Forgetting what I wrote before. A commenter here reminded me that I had Lyanna dead and Jon born in the first installment - thanks, Armansky1! Sorry about the inconsistency and feel free to point any other such instance to me.

“Lady Lyanna’s babe arrived last night.”

Ser Gerold looked up sharply and Barristan stopped leafing through the White Book. Arthur did not bother to turn, so uninterested he was.

“Where did you hear it?” the Lord Commander asked.

“Princess Elia told me. They’ve been discussing it since dawn.”

 _Or perhaps even before?_ Arthur wanted to ask. He had little doubt that with Mors Blackmont in front of her door, Elia had not spent the night alone. His fists clenched involuntarily before the words registered. A girl child born to the girl would mean nothing. It would certainly not merit a prolonged discussion. “Is it a boy?” he asked, just to be sure, and when Mors confirmed, fury came over him, as unbridled as the Torrentine at night. He wanted Rhaegar right here, now, so he could shake him and yell at him, asking him if it had been all worth it. Rhaegar had been so sure that the birth of his daughter would prove him right at the end – only to have a boy!

Of course, Arthur would have never done such a thing but it felt nice to dream that he would have.

Oswell gave a little whistle. “Now, it’s going to become interesting,” he said.

“Is it?” Arthur snapped. “Don’t tell me that you regret missing out on the war so much that you want a second one to take place?”

His sworn brother shrugged, unconcerned. “It isn’t going to come to this,” he said. “But yes, things can get a little more exciting here. I bet the one who guards the door when they discuss it with Lord Stark will have things to hear.”

“Which is why it’s going to be Ser Mors, most likely,” Arthur said angrily and wondered just when he had started depending on the boy to keep Elia safe from those who only saw her as something that had no worth of its own. Entertainment.

What he had not expected was that the exciting times would not be with Eddard Stark but within the ranks of the Dornish themselves. Ryon’s voice was so agitated that it reached Arthur through the thick door effortlessly. “Wed her? Lyanna Stark?” There was anger and disbelief in his voice. “The woman who is the reason my brother no longer lives? Is this why you’re all gathered here now? Because you thought you had a greater chance to pressure me into succumbing? Well, I’ll never agree. Never. To wed Rhaegar Targaryen’s whore… Never.”

Doran sounded unimpressed. “I’m afraid I have to insist. We can ill afford to have the lady wed to someone who can give her unreasonable ideas about her standing and her son’s standing… I really hoped that it would not come to this but we always knew that the chances for her babe to be a boy were equal to the chances of it being a girl.”

“Well, the chances of me taking her to wife are nonexistent,” Ryon said. The first fury had passed and its place, a steely resolve had settled. Arthur wondered how long it would last. Few people could withstand the Prince of Dorne’s insistence, for all of Doran’s mild manners. Are Elia and Lady Lyanna going to share a man again, he wondered and then wondered why he wasn’t laughing. He should be. It was very amusing. No, not amusing at all.

“So I’m the one you chose for the honour of being her jailor and maester, trying to teach her reason? Why, thank you very much, my prince, but no. I am not interested. And besides, you know my mother has the last word on who I wed. I assure you, Lyanna Stark is the last woman she wants as a gooddaughter. And I  have a son that I need to protect. Knowing Lady Lyanna’s penchant of not letting things like babes stop her when she wants something, I’m quite sure I won’t be placing a boy of nine in her way… and I’m not giving up on Daemon, never.”

 Now, Elia’s voice rose a little to be heard over his. “Whatever the girl is, I don’t think she’s a murderer. As much as it pains me to  admit it, I’m afraid my husband played games with her mind.”

Ryon snorted. “And I’m supposed to wait and find out if she’s the  rapacious woman who intended to displace you over time and talk Rhaegar into replacing your son with hers, or the poor little deluded girl? That’s easy enough for you. I don’t care to find out the hard way.”

For the first time, Arthur felt something like compassion for the girl. Rhaegar was no longer here, so she’d have to take the blame for his part in the whole affair in addition to her own, just like Arthur…

“You’re going to find her someone who doesn’t hate her, aren’t you?” he asked that night as Elia and Larra sorted Elia’s correspondence out and he had just been relieved from duty.

Elia looked up and there was something hostile in her eyes. “So you care now? What are you going to tell me next, that she’s managed to charm you as well?”

He snorted this off. “Don’t be a fool. You well know that there is just one woman for me. But today, I realized just how much everyone hates her and this… this isn’t fair.”

Elia broke the next seal, unimpressed.  “What about this story seems fair to you? If not placing Lyanna Stark in a position where she and her son could create the slightest trouble for Aegon is unfair, then I’m ready to commit this sin. And rest assured, if Ryon objects this much to the idea, it won’t happen. Refusing to say the words at the actual wedding won’t be beneficial to the peace in the realm – and he can just do it.”

“You seem to know him very well,” Arthur said sharply, enraged with the casual intimacy in her tone, furious at imagining that they could leave this behind this very night, in Elia’s bed… His determination to wait for her to come to her senses and true self was proving more fragile than expected!

 “I know him well enough,” Elia said. “If you want to visit Lady Lyanna, you may. I doubt she’ll be getting many visits from anyone but her brother. And she might use some support right now. Soon, she’ll have to be parted from her babe and knowing that I would have been devastated if I had been forced to part with mine, I think she’ll need all the support she can get.”

Arthur shook his head, for behind Elia’s calm, reasonable words, the distrust was showing. He tried to make some sense of it, could not, decided that it did not matter. If Elia’ s perception of him as betraying her for Lyanna Stark persisted, it would take him months to deal with it – and he was not ready to take the risk, not now. Ryon was leaving soon, with Prince Doran and this made Elia sad but reconciled. Soon, the man she had replaced him with would be gone. And honestly, he would not know what to say to the girl and he did not think she would welcome him. She had tried to win him over once and failed. They had not been friends in the tower and Lyanna Stark was not enough of a fool to believe that they were now. His presence would not be any comfort.

Still, he looked at Elia and had to admit that he did not like her when she was being like this. She no longer possessed many of the qualities that had made him fall in love with her.

“Are you leaving as well?” he turned to Larra, with a fresh pang in his heart for being so unaware of their plans. Once, he had only thought of what being a Kingsguard would include him in; he had never given a thought to the matter of the things it would exclude him from. No kingdom, no kin, nothing to hold sacred but what his sovereign demanded of him – oh yes, he could see how this would facilitate no words, no asking for opinion or advice, nothing to trust him with.

She gave him a sideways look that made him aware of just how grievously he had behaved in his defence of Lady Lyanna. “No,” she said. “We’re staying here. Arel and I. And my son, of course, until Prince Oberyn decides to leave. We’ve left capable people in our place and honestly, we’re happier here than we were in Dorne, what with this Voice of Sunspear thing.” She smiled. “And you were wrong. Not everyone here hates Lady Lyanna. I, for one, am quite thankful to her. She tore the ties between Arel and Shanai, you know.  Before, he felt guilty about me, although it was she who did not want him. But now… Algor was not just Ryon’s brother, he was Shanai’s as well. She wasn’t impressed with you hiding the girl so close to home.”

This was beyond anything imaginable!  He stared at Larra, trying to find out what she meant and then arriving at the conclusion that she had meant just what he hd initially thought. “She… she wanted to punish Arel for Algor’s death? Because I helped Rhaegar and this allowed for the Trident to happen?”

“You can say so. Not exactly, but…” Larra shook her head. “Their love could have survived this if it had been strong enough. Looks like it wasn’t.”

He was astounded at her casual dismissal, her way of shedding any responsibility, as if it had just happened, as if she had not played any part in her own love affair at all. Did Arel not see this? How could he love a woman capable of such low blows? Did he love her at all.

And then, he looked at Elia and realized that a man might dislike a woman’s bad traits and love her anyway. He wanted to hold her, made love to her, erase the pain that still lurked under her calm façade. Why should his brother be any different?

He would wait, for his time would come. And he wouldn’t do anything that carried the risk to leave him even further separated from his family, Dorne, Elia.

Besides, Lyanna Stark did not need or want his help. She would survive. All of them would. And Arthur still intended to make sure that Elia would do more than basic survival.

* * *

 

**The End**

 

 


End file.
